State to attempt testing of 3,000 deer for disease

Wednesday

Sep 18, 2013 at 12:01 AMSep 18, 2013 at 12:40 PM

RALEIGH — The N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission is asking hunters to allow staff to sample their deer harvests this fall to monitor fatal Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD), according to a press release by the agency.

Daily News staff

RALEIGH — The N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission is asking hunters to allow staff to sample their deer harvests this fall to monitor fatal Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD), according to a press release by the agency.

Infected deer may not show symptoms of the disease for five years or more. No treatment or cure exists. Transmission occurs by animal-to-animal contact and evidence suggests contaminated environments present risks. Humans are not known to contract the disease.

Although CWD has not been detected in North Carolina, deer populations have tested positive for the disease in Virginia, West Virginia and 20 other states, and two Canadian provinces.

The Commission has been monitoring CWD in white-tailed deer since 1999, including two statewide sampling efforts in 2003 and 2008, and smaller scale subsampling efforts in other years. The 2013 surveillance will be the most extensive yet as the agency seeks to collect samples from at least 3,000 deer in North Carolina.

Public assistance will be essential to help the agency meet its goal, according to Maria Palamar, the Commission’s wildlife veterinarian.

“If you, or someone you know, harvests deer this fall and are willing to donate samples, please contact the Wildlife Commission promptly,” Palamar stated in a press release. “We’ll collect the brain stem and retropharyngeal lymph nodes to submit for laboratory testing. Collection of these tissues does not interfere with a hunter’s ability to retain the antlers or consume the meat.”

Hunters who want to help the Commission can contact their local district wildlife biologists to discuss the collection process. Contact information for each of the Commission’s nine district biologists, as well as the three regional wildlife supervisors, can be found on this map.

Participants will be asked to provide a tissue sample, and their name, contact information, exact location where the deer was killed, date of the kill and the animal’s sex.

Suitable samples can be taken from any deer 1½ years or older. While younger deer, such as button bucks, could have the disease, it would not have progressed enough for tests to detect CWD.

For more information on hunting in North Carolina, visit the Commission’s hunting page, or call the Division of Wildlife Management, 919-707-0050.

Hunters can call the Commission’s Division of Wildlife Management at 919-707-0050.

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